Beautiful Joe (15 page)

“You had
foxes up in Maine, I suppose Mr. Wood, hadn’t you?” asked Mr. Maxwell.

“Heaps of
them. I always want to laugh when I think of our foxes, for they were so cute.
Never a fox did I catch in a trap, though I’d set many a one. I’d take the
carcass of some creature that had died, a sheep, for instance, and put it in a
field near the woods, and the foxes would come and eat it. After they got accustomed
to come and eat and no harm befell them, they would be unsuspecting. So just
before a snowstorm, I’d take a trap and put it this spot. I’d handle it with gloves,
and I’d smoke it, and rub fir boughs on it to take away the human smell, and
then the snow would come and cover it up, and yet those foxes would know it was
a trap and walk all around it. It’s a wonderful thing, that sense of smell in
animals, if it is a sense of smell. Joe here has got a good bit of it.”

“What kind
of traps were they, father?” asked Mr. Harry.

“Cruel
ones—steel ones. They’d catch an animal by the leg and sometimes break the
bone. The leg would bleed, and below the jaws of the trap it would freeze,
there being no circulation of the blood. Those steel traps are an abomination.
The people around here use one made on the same principle for catching rats. I
wouldn’t have them on my place for any money. I believe we’ve got to give an
account for all the unnecessary suffering we put on animals.”

“You’ll
have some to answer for, John, according to your own story,” said Mrs. Wood.

“I have
suffered already,” he said. “Many a night I’ve lain on my bed and groaned, when
I thought of needless cruelties I’d put upon animals when I was a young,
unthinking boy and I was pretty carefully brought up, too, according to our
light in those days. I often think that if I was cruel, with all the
instruction I had to be merciful, what can be expected of the children that get
no good teaching at all when they’re young.”

“Tell us
some more about the foxes, Mr. Wood,” said Mr. Maxwell.

“Well, we
used to have rare sport hunting them with foxhounds. I’d often go off for the
day with my hounds. Sometimes in the early morning they’d find a track in the
snow. The leader for scent would go back and forth, to find out which way the
fox was going. I can see him now. All the time that he ran, now one way and now
another on the track of the fox, he was silent, but kept his tail aloft,
wagging it as a signal to the hounds behind. He was leader in scent, but he did
not like bloody, dangerous fights. By-and-by, he would decide which way the fox
had gone. Then his tail, still kept high in the air, would wag more violently.
The rest followed him in single file, going pretty slow, so as to enable us to
keep up to them. By-and-by, they would come to a place where the fox was
sleeping for the day. As soon as he was disturbed he would leave his bed under
some thick fir or spruce branches near the ground. This flung his fresh scent
into the air. As soon as the hounds sniffed it, they gave tongue in good
earnest. It was a mixed, deep baying, that made the blood quicken in my veins.
While in the excitement of first fright, the fox would run fast for a mile or
two, till he found it an easy matter to keep out of the way of the hounds. Then
he, cunning creature, would begin to bother them. He would mount to the top
pole of the worm fence dividing the fields from the woods. He could trot along
here quite a distance and then make a long jump into the woods. The hounds
would come up, but could not walk the fence, and they would have difficulty in finding
where the fox had left it. Then we saw generalship. The hounds scattered in all
directions, and made long detours into the woods and fields. As soon as the
track was lost, they ceased to bay, but the instant a hound found it again, he
bayed to give the signal to the others. All would hurry to the spot, and off
they would go baying as they went.

“Then Mr.
Fox would try a new trick. He would climb a leaning tree, and then jump to the
ground. This trick would soon be found out. Then he’d try another. He would
make a circle of a quarter of a mile in circumference. By making a loop in his
course, he would come in behind the hounds, and puzzle them between the scent
of his first and following tracks. If the snow was deep, the hounds had made a
good track for him. Over this he could run easily, and they would have to feel
their way along, for after he had gone around the circle a few times, he would jump
from the beaten path as far as he could, and make off to other cover in a
straight line. Before this was done it was my plan to get near the circle;
taking care to approach it on the leeward side. If the fox got a sniff of human
scent, he would leave his circle very quickly, and make tracks fast to be out
of danger. By the baying of the hounds, the circle in which the race was kept
up could be easily known. The last runs to get near enough to shoot had to be
done when the hounds’ baying came from the side of the circle nearest to me.
For then the fox would be on the opposite side farthest away. As soon as I got
near enough to see the hounds when they passed, I stopped. When they got on the
opposite side, I then kept a bright lookout for the fox. Sometimes when the
brush was thick, the sight of him would be indistinct. The shooting had to be
quick. As soon as the report of the gun was heard, the hounds ceased to bay,
and made for the spot. If the fox was dead, they enjoyed the scent of his
blood. If only wounded, they went after him with all speed. Sometimes he was
overtaken and killed, and sometimes he got into his burrow in the earth, or in
a hollow log, or among the rocks.

“One day,
I remember, when I was standing on the outside of the circle, the fox came in
sight. I fired. He gave a shrill bark, and came toward me. Then he stopped in
the snow and fell dead in his tracks. I was a pretty good shot in those days.”

“Poor
little fox,” said Miss Laura. “I wish you had let him get away.”

“Here’s
one that nearly got away,” said Mr. Wood. “One winter’s day, I was chasing him
with the hounds. There was a crust on the snow, and the fox was light, while
the dogs were heavy. They ran along, the fox trotting nimbly on the top of the
crust and the dogs breaking through, and every few minutes that fox would stop
and sit down to look at the dogs. They were in a fury, and the wickedness of
the fox in teasing them, made me laugh so much that I was very unwilling to
shoot him.”

“You said
your steel traps were cruel things, uncle,” said Miss Laura. “Why didn’t you
have a deadfall for the foxes as you had for the bears?”

“They were
too cunning to go into deadfalls. There was a better way to catch them, though.
Foxes hate water, and never go into it unless they are obliged to, so we used
to find a place where a tree had fallen across a river, and made a bridge for
them to go back and forth on. Here we set snares, with spring poles that would
throw them into the river when they made struggles to get free, and drown them.
Did you ever hear of the fox, Laura, that wanted to cross a river, and lay down
on the bank pretending that he was dead, and a countryman came along, and, thinking
he had a prize, threw him in his boat and rowed across, when the fox got up and
ran away?”

“Now,
uncle,” said Miss Laura, “you’re laughing at me. That couldn’t be true.”

“Well,”
said Mr. Wood, chuckling, “they’re mighty cute at pretending they’re dead. I
once shot one in the morning, carried him a long way on my shoulders, and
started to skin him in the afternoon, when he turned around and bit me enough
to draw blood. At another time I dug one out of a hole in the ground. He
feigned death. I took him up and threw him down at some distance, and he jumped
up and ran into the woods.”

“What
other animals did you catch when you were a boy?” asked Mr. Maxwell.

“Oh, a
number. Otters and beavers—we caught them in deadfalls and in steel traps. The
mink we usually took in deadfalls, smaller, of course, than the ones we used
for the bears. The musk-rat we caught in box traps like a mouse trap. The
wild-cat we ran down like the lucivee—.”

“What kind
of an animal is that?” asked Mr. Maxwell.

“It is a
lynx, belonging to the cat species. They used to prowl about the country
killing hens, geese, and sometimes sheep. They’d fix their tusks in the sheep’s
neck and suck the blood. They did not think much of the sheep’s flesh. We ran
them down with dogs. They’d often run up trees, and we’d shoot them. Then there
were rabbits that we caught, mostly in snares. For musk-rats, we’d put a parsnip
or an apple on the spindle of a box trap. When we snared a rabbit, I always
wanted to find it caught around the neck and strangled to death. If they got
half through the snare and were caught around the body, or by the hind legs, they’d
live for some time, and they’d cry just like a child. I like shooting them
better, just because I hated to hear their pitiful cries. It’s a bad business
this of killing dumb creatures, and the older I get, the more chicken-hearted I
am about it.”

“‘Chicken-hearted’—I
should think you are,” said Mrs. Wood. “Do you know, Laura, he won’t even kill
a fowl for dinner. He gives it to one of the men to do.”

“‘Blessed
are the merciful,’” said Miss Laura, throwing her arm over her uncle’s
shoulder. “I love you, dear Uncle John, because you are so kind to every living
thing.”

“I’m going
to be kind to you now,” said her uncle, “and send you to bed. You look tired.”

“Very
well,” she said, with a smile. Then bidding them all good-night, she went
upstairs. Mr. Wood turned to Mr. Maxwell. “You’re going to stay all night with
us, aren’t you?”

“So Mrs.
Wood says,” replied the young man, with a smile.

“Of
course,” she said. “I couldn’t think of letting you go back to the village such
a night as this. It’s raining cats and dogs but I mustn’t say that, or there’ll
be no getting you to stay. I’ll go and prepare your old room next to Harry’s.”
And she bustled away.

The two
young men went to the pantry for doughnuts and milk, and Mr. Wood stood gazing
down at me. “Good dog,” he said; “you look as if you sensed that talk tonight.
Come, get a bone, and then away to bed.”

He gave me
a very large mutton bone, and I held it in my mouth, and watched him opening
the woodshed door. I love human beings; and the saddest time of day for me is
when I have to be separated from them while they sleep.

“Now, go
to bed and rest well, Beautiful Joe,” said Mr. Wood, “and if you hear any
stranger round the house, run out and bark. Don’t be chasing wild animals in
your sleep, though. They say a dog is the only animal that dreams. I wonder
whether it’s true?” Then he went into the house and shut the door.

I had a
sheepskin to lie on, and a very good bed it made. I slept soundly for a long
time; then I waked up and found that, instead of rain pattering against the
roof, and darkness everywhere, it was quite light. The rain was over, and the
moon was shining beautifully. I ran to the door and looked out. It was almost
as light as day. The moon made it very bright all around the house and farm
buildings, and I could look all about and see that there was no one stirring. I
took a turn around the yard, and walked around to the side of the house, to
glance up at Miss Laura’s window. I always did this several times through the
night, just to see if she was quite safe. I was on my way back to my bed, when I
saw two small, white things moving away down the lane. I stood on the veranda
and watched them. When they got nearer, I saw that there was a white rabbit
hopping up the road, followed by a white hen.

It seemed
to me a very strange thing for these creatures to be out this time of night,
and why were they coming to Dingley Farm? This wasn’t their home. I ran down on
the road and stood in front of them.

Just as
soon as the hen saw me, she fluttered in front of the rabbit, and, spreading
out her wings, clucked angrily, and acted as if she would peck my eyes out if I
came nearer.

I saw that
they were harmless creatures, and, remembering my adventure with the snake, I
stepped aside. Besides that, I knew by their smell that they had been near Mr.
Maxwell, so perhaps they were after him.

They
understood quite well that I would not hurt them, and passed by me. The rabbit
went ahead again and the hen fell behind. It seemed to me that the hen was
sleepy, and didn’t like to be out so late at night, and was only following the
rabbit because she thought it was her duty.

He was
going along in a very queer fashion, putting his nose to the ground, and rising
up on his hind legs, and sniffing the air, first on this side and then on the
other, and his nose going, going all the time.

He smelled
all around the house till he came to Mr. Maxwell’s room at the back. It opened
on the veranda by a glass door, and the door stood ajar. The rabbit squeezed
himself in, and the hen stayed out. She watched for a while, and when he didn’t
come back, she flew upon the back of a chair that stood near the door, and put
her head under her wing.

I went
back to my bed, for I knew they would do no harm. Early in the morning, when I
was walking around the house, I heard a great shouting and laughing from Mr.
Maxwell’s room. He and Mr. Harry had just discovered the hen and the rabbit;
and Mr. Harry was calling his mother to come and look at them. The rabbit had
slept on the foot of the bed.

Mr. Harry
was chaffing Mr. Maxwell very much, and was telling him that anyone who
entertained him was in for a traveling menagerie. They had a great deal of fun
over it, and Mr. Maxwell said that he had had that pretty, white hen as a pet
for a long time in Boston. Once when she had some little chickens, a frightened
rabbit, that was being chased by a dog, ran into the yard. In his terror he got
right under the hen’s wings, and she sheltered him, and pecked at the dog’s
eyes, and kept him off till help came. The rabbit belonged to a neighbor’s boy,
and Mr. Maxwell bought it from him. From the day the hen protected him, she became
his friend, and followed him everywhere.